The present invention relates generally to soft body armor, and more specifically to a novel ballistic protective insert for providing enhanced protection for female breasts.
Soft body armor is often worn by law enforcement personnel to protect against the ballistic impact of projectiles such as bullets. Soft body armor is generally made with flexible ballistic fabric woven from ballistic fibers such as KEVLAR, an aramid polymer fiber made by DuPont Corporation, or SPECTRA, a high strength/high modulus polyethylene fiber made by Allied Signal, Inc. While soft body armor can save the life of an law enforcement officer by preventing bullet penetration, the impact energy transferred to the officer's body will cause painful injury, called blunt trauma, most often in the form of severe bruises and even broken bones. The dangers from ballistic impact are particularly acute in the case of blunt trauma to female breasts. Breast, or mammary, tissue is easily bruised and heals slowly. Injury often results in necrosis, or death, of the mammary tissue with lumpy scar tissue eventually replacing the dead tissue. Beyond possible disfigurement, breast injuries from blunt trauma can result in loss of a breast and even death from internal bleeding.
The soft body armor prior art has recognized and attempted to solve some of the ballistic impact protection problems unique to women, particularly the problem of fit. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,578,821 to Zufle discloses a ballistic fabric body armor front insert panel that can be easily adjusted into a horizontal ridge-like shape to accommodate the contour of a woman's bust. U.S. Pat. No. 4,183,097 to Mellian discloses a body armor vest garment specially made for use by women. The Mellian patent shows a ballistic fabric protective front panel made from two side panels partially overlapping a central panel to provide a shape contoured to the curvature of a woman's bust. The contour shape taught by the Mellian patent also provides a better fit, and therefore better protection, around the arm openings. Most manufacturers of soft body armor also offer steel and/or ceramic flat plates, including smaller sizes for women, that fit inside front pockets of the soft body armor over the wearer's chest to provide additional protection. These plates are generally rectangular and often incorporate a slight horizontal bend for fit.
The prior art also includes attempts to solve problems of breast injuries to women participating in athletics. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,478,739 to Librande and U.S. Pat. No. 3,176,686 to Barnes both disclose protective brassieres made of hard, but resilient or elastic, material to absorb the energy of impact.
Unfortunately, the attempted solutions of the prior art have not been completely successful. For example, contoured front panels appear to increase the risk of injury from ballistic impact over the sternum. There is approximately two inches of open space over the sternum, created by the contour shape of the panel, that must be collapsed before the soft body armor fabric can begin to stretch and dissipate the energy of an impacting projectile. Also, the addition of front plates appears to create a danger that impacting projectiles will be deflected toward the throat and head.
Moreover, the prior art has either, in the case of soft body armor adapted for use by women, not addressed the unique problem of greater sensitivity of mammary tissue to blunt trauma or, in the case of athletic protectors, only had to protect against relatively low impact forces where the expected energies could be nearly completely absorbed by tolerable levels of deformation and force.
It is thus seen that there is a need for a structure to be used with soft body armor that protects a female breast from the effects of blunt trauma caused by the ballistic impact of a projectile.
It is, therefore, a principal object of the present invention to provide a ballistic protective insert for use with soft body armor that protects a female breast from the effects of blunt trauma caused by ballistic impact.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a means for transferring the impact energy from a ballistic projectile striking a female breast to the chest wall or other, more injury-resistant, part of the body.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a means for dissipating the impact energy from a ballistic projectile striking a female breast.
It is a feature of the present invention that it also increases the desirable snug fit of the ballistic fabric over a woman's bust to maximize the energy absorption ability of the ballistic fabric.
It is an advantage of the present invention that its combination of conventionally constructed soft body armor and a protective insert provides equal or greater protection against penetration of a ballistic projectile at a lighter overall weight than conventionally constructed soft body armor alone.
These and other objects, features and advantages of the present invention will become apparent as the description of certain representative embodiments proceeds.